United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) officials recently reiterated to all patent examiners that they must provide clear, consistent analysis regarding means-plus-function and step-plus-function limitations. ...more
The Federal Circuit has affirmed a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB or Board) finding unpatentable certain claims of a patent for making semiconductor devices. The case is Bell Semiconductor LLC v....more
In a precedential opinion, the Federal Circuit affirmed two Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) patentability decisions, holding that the PTAB did not abuse its discretion by not addressing arguments not clearly presented...more
Last week marked the first time that USPTO Director Vidal acted under the Revised Interim Director Review Process to order a Delegated Rehearing Panel to review a decision denying institution of inter partes review (IPR). In...more
A Petitioner filed a request for rehearing and a request for Precedential Opinion Panel review after the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB or the “Board”) rejected its petition for post-grant review. The Director of the...more
Absent exceptional circumstances, the Federal Circuit will generally not consider arguments that a party failed to present in the tribunal under review. In Netflix, Inc. v. DivX, LLC, the Federal Circuit held that IPR...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed that challenged claims were invalid as anticipated based on principles of inherency where the disclosed prior art formulations and processes necessarily met a disputed...more
The Supreme Court's (re)consideration of the enablement requirement expected in its decision later this year in Amgen v. Sanofi may be the most closely watched patent case since AMP v. Myriad Genetics. But in a decision...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board denied a petition to institute inter partes review, finding there was no reasonable likelihood that petitioners would prevail on their obviousness challenges. In rendering its decision, the...more
Provisur Technologies, Inc. v. Weber, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2021-1942, -1975 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 27, 2022) - In this week’s Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit reviewed an IPR decision and addressed the Patent Trial and Appeal...more
Claim Limitation Not Disclosed by Any Reference but Disclosed by “Proposed Combination” of References Is Obvious - In Hoyt Augustus Fleming v. Cirrus Design Corporation, Appeal No. 21-1561, the Federal Circuit held that a...more
In Quanergy Systems, Inc. v. Velodyne Lidar USA, Inc.1, a Panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB or Board) decisions that claims of a Velodyne patent were...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) patentability decisions after determining that the Board did not err in construing multiple terms within the challenged patents....more
A judge in the Eastern District of Virginia recently held that cancellation of independent claims in an inter partes review (IPR) did not preclude the plaintiff from asserting infringement based on the doctrine of equivalents...more
The Federal Circuit is holding its first argument session of 2022 this week (with a return to telephonic arguments in light of the Omicron variant). In this post, we take a look back at how the Court closed out 2021 and...more
One common rationale used to support an obviousness argument is that the patented solution would have been “obvious to try.” The Supreme Court has stated that where “there are a finite number of identified, predictable...more
In academic settings, objective indicia of non-obviousness are sometimes presented as a common way of rebutting contentions that a claimed invention is obvious. These indicia, set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co. and...more
In Qualcomm Inc. v. Intel Corp., the Federal Circuit held that Qualcomm was not afforded notice of, or an adequate opportunity to respond to, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB’s) novel construction of an undisputed...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board denied institution of a petition for inter partes review (IPR), in part because an allegedly anticipatory prior art patent lacked an element of what the board determined was a limiting...more
The legal concept of obviousness is tricky. A claimed invention is found obvious if the prior art teaches or suggests all claim limitations and one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the...more
In Trustees of Columbia University v. Illumina, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (“PTAB” or “Board”) decision to invalidate five patents owned by Columbia,...more
In a recent precedential decision, the PTAB emphasized that objective indicia of nonobviousness must have a nexus to the claimed invention. Lectrosonics, Inc. v. Zaxcom, Inc., No. IPR2018-01129, Paper 33 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 24,...more
Building on Tip #4, one effective way to avoid institution and not address facts is to point out shortcomings in the petition's application of KSR when asserting motivation to combine for an obviousness analysis. The Patent...more
ST. JUDE MEDICAL, LLC v. SNYDERS HEART VALVE LLC - Before Newman, O’Malley, and Taranto. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Summary: The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim must be considered in...more
The Federal Circuit recently reaffirmed a case where common sense was used to supply a missing element in a § 103 obviousness analysis. On June 26, 2020, the Federal Circuit issued a decision in B/E Aerospace, Inc. v. C&D...more